wjnovel Chapter 352 - 162: Attention from the Alone in the Wilderness Production Team
Chapter 352 - 162: Attention from the Alone in the Wilderness Production Team
This night was exceptionally comfortable.
Li Younan woke up to find that it was already broad daylight.
Curious, he called Liu Yu, and after a while, Liu Yu finally picked up the phone.
Li Younan asked, "Did you sleep well last night?"
Liu Yu replied casually, "It was okay. Your tent is pretty decent."
Li Younan immediately perked up, "Not bad, right? That’s the ’battle tent’ I used at Gongga Mountain."
At this moment, Liu Yu gently sneezed.
Li Younan pretended not to hear the sneeze and asked, "Did you catch any fish last night?"
Liu Yu stayed silent. After a moment, she asked back, "You got up early to call just to ask this?"
Li Younan said strangely, "Shouldn’t I show some concern?"
Liu Yu said, "When are you coming to pick me up?"
Li Younan thought for a moment, "I have to visit an artisan elder today, so I’ll see after I’m done."
Liu Yu agreed.
Meanwhile, on the other side, JK Long had edited yesterday’s video.
The video had no flashy commentary; scenes of an arrow hitting two fish and subsequent catches were enough to whet the audience’s appetite.
Li Younan checked it and, finding no problems, clicked upload.
This was another ad-free pure version video.
Although Li Younan would endorse products now and then, most of his videos remained clean and pure.
This aspect, ironically, made many of his viewers unhappy, with several commenting under his videos: "Brother, take on some ads. We’re really worried you won’t have the money to travel and might stop uploading."
Such comments naturally had a jesting tone, but they also indirectly reflected the audience’s love for his videos—so long as the video quality remains high, endorsing products not only won’t attract resentment but will even make people worry if he doesn’t.
Quite nice.
Next, Li Younan quickly freshened up and contacted Lu Shihua to visit the artisan elder she mentioned.
...
After Li Younan posted his video, as usual, it quickly garnered a high volume of traffic.
The planning team of the "Alone in the Wilderness" program, responsible for selecting survival experts, led by Cameron Spielberg, was sipping coffee while browsing through potential candidates standing out in the emails sent by the staff.
Among them were seasoned lumberjacks, hunters, mountaineers, and more.
As a gatekeeper, Cameron’s selection criteria, apart from assessing survival skills, put great emphasis on their ability to attract audiences.
They must have distinctive traits to be memorable, ensuring that the program remains engaging.
The most popular season was carried by a contestant named Roland—after all, as a survival expert who could hunt black bears and musk oxen, providing a thrilling experience from the start, he greatly satisfied the viewers.
It was like the NBA only became a sensation after Jordan—a star-level survival expert similarly has massive drawing power for their program.
Any competitive program of this nature seeking rapid popularity needs to create stars.
This season’s selections indeed had several contestants with star potential.
Among them, Cameron was quite pleased with a retired special forces member from the U.S. Marine Corps—a handsome fellow who, if selected as a contestant, could attract a large female audience.
He continued to browse.
Some of these potential contestants contacted the program themselves, but most were discovered by the program’s "Alone in the Wilderness" scouts seeking survival experts worldwide.
Suddenly, an email caught Cameron’s attention.
The email was titled: "A Chinese Video Blogger with Potential for the Show."
Although it was previously discussed in meetings to try and discover contestants from China, as the real gatekeeper, Cameron was actually rather skeptical about those influencers from the Chinese region.
This wasn’t due to stereotypes against Chinese people. In fact, he had lived in China for three years and understood China better than most Americans.
The major issue with Chinese participants in the program is that their country is almost the most strictly regulated hunting nation in the world.
Besides rats, you can hardly legally hunt any other animals.
He remembered a particularly absurd piece of news from China he had read once: a farmer was fined by authorities for protecting his farmland from wild boar attacks.
However, it is said that in the past year or two, China has opened up regulations on the protection of wild boars, but this cannot change the fact that Chinese people have a hard time satisfying their hunting experience in the short term.
And in the game Alone in the Wilderness, if you can’t hunt, it’s almost impossible to become a star.
Of course, stars also need ordinary contestants to set them off, so this show will also have some obviously humorous contestants to add uncertainty and highlight the image of the stars.
Despite this, Cameron’s professionalism and dedication made him seriously open the document.
The document describes a Chinese influencer travel blogger named Li Younan.
The information and data about this travel blogger are basically sourced from publicly available online information.
An extremely young person, probably only in their twenties.
Before becoming a travel blogger, he was a network engineer, proficient in parkour.
Seeing this, Cameron frowned slightly.
A network engineer who can parkour, especially in a social environment like China, made it hard for Cameron to believe in his survival skills.
However, he continued reading with patience, but after a while, his expression became intrigued.
The email mentions the young man has an incredible learning ability, and his physical talent allows him to quickly master a skill.
According to the information displayed in his videos, after trying archery a few times, he fully grasped the essence of the weapon.
Following are several screenshots from videos, with text describing: He learned archery in Inner Mongolia from an ordinary coach and quickly mastered the precision to hit the bullseye.
Seeing this, Cameron’s eyes showed some interest.
If he is a gifted archer, then he has some potential in the show Alone in the Wilderness.
At this point, he was only halfway through the email. As he continued reading, he found that, in addition, the young man is skilled in building craftsmanship.
In his previous videos, he once renovated his grandparents’ old house, showcasing excellent woodworking skills in his videos.
This could potentially be his foundation for building shelters in Alone in the Wilderness.
To this, Cameron stroked his chin.
He knows that Chinese carpenters possess a very magical skill, able to construct stable frames using just the wood structure itself, without relying on glue or nails.
In ancient China, there must have been a group of people proficient in physics and mechanics who led the research in all of this.
However, pursuing such meticulous craftsmanship in Alone in the Wilderness might not be a good thing. So Cameron didn’t pay much attention to this and kept reading.
Recently, this young man did something quite extraordinary: he climbed a mountain called Gongga Mountain.
In terms of climbing difficulty, this mountain is even more challenging than Mount Everest in some aspects.
"Although it is only 7600 meters, the terrain is much more complicated and perilous, unlike Mount Everest’s gentler slopes—I mean from the north slope. Not only did this young man successfully climb Gongga Mountain, but he also saved another young person’s life, and this incident has made headlines in China."
Seeing this, Cameron became genuinely interested.
He understands that if a person can easily climb such high-altitude mountains, they certainly have a strong survival talent in terms of physical fitness, and their psychological resilience is often far stronger than that of ordinary people.
He stroked his chin, checking that the email was sent about a week ago.
Driven by curiosity, he took out his phone, and following the email’s instructions, he downloaded the Chinese version of TikTok, quickly finding Li Younan’s video profile through translation software.
After clicking in, the first video was just released not long ago, showing Li Younan shooting two fish with one arrow, followed by consecutive rod fishing.
Watching this video, Cameron’s eyes finally showed great interest.
He carefully watched the details of Li Younan shooting two fish with one arrow, confirming that this was not a video made with special effects.
He then watched the rod fishing video. As someone who has long planned wilderness survival programs, Cameron naturally has been in contact with many fishing experts.
You can almost quickly judge whether someone can fish just by their movements.
Watching Li Younan’s fishing actions, a layperson might not be able to tell much, but Cameron keenly realized that Li Younan is definitely a very experienced angler.
Suddenly he realized this issue. He had always been thinking that Chinese people lack hunting experience, but for wilderness survival, besides hunting, you can also fish. Clearly, Li Younan can obtain high-quality protein either by shooting fish with a bow and arrow or by fishing.
Especially the fish shooting video, Cameron took a sip of coffee, watched it several times, and had to admit that the actions in this video were really cool with a cinematic flair.
He slowly closed the video, reflecting on how Li Younan, as an experienced video blogger, wouldn’t produce raw footage like those inexperienced survival experts.
He should be someone with a keen camera sense, knowing what kind of video has the hotspot to attract viewers.
However, it’s currently just a preliminary intention, requiring further observation.
Cameron listed Li Younan as a candidate for further evaluation.